Technical Entrepreneurship

Course code: CHEE 202/3.0 (this course is offered by the Faculty of Engineering, and open to all Queen's students!)
Next Offered: January 2019
Course Cap: 200
Prerequisite: Level 2 standing (which means you need to be a second-year student, or above)

Course Description:

This course will help students from all disciplines learn to identify sources, rates, and directions of technological change, and understand the role and challenges of technical innovation across sectors, countries, and organizations. We will investigate the relationships between innovation and industrial dynamics, and seek to understand the fundamental forces that drive the science and technology industries’ evolution and industry life cycles. In the process, students will learn about frameworks and tools used to analyze new technology adoption and to predict technology diffusion patterns, and to develop business models that move innovations forward. As they analyze case studies that focus on issues of the strategic value of technological innovation, students will practice developing an entrepreneurial mindset capable of turning problems into opportunities.

Course Design:

Delivered online over 12 weeks, this course involves combination of lectures and case studies will be used to cover the most important concepts in this course. The course includes some combination of video lectures, live web meetings, asynchronous online discussions, individual research assignments, group activities, forum debates, and peer reviews.

Sample course lesson topics will include:

Cultivating an Entrepreneurial Mindset

Business Models and the Business Model Canvas

Diffusion of Innovation and patterns of evaluation and adoption

Regulatory and Ethical Issues in Technical Innovation

Systems Thinking: holistic view (overall behaviour more than sum of the parts), and that which is similar/different for inspiration and insight

Design Thinking - human-centred design with observation and insight, identifying the right problem to solve

Design to Commercialization

Protecting the Strategic Value of IP

Learning Outcomes:

1. Apply the steps of problem definition and reframing using systems thinking tools

2. Gain an appreciation for how a structured design process can assist them in their start enterprises

3. Define and articulate what technical innovation is

4. Communicate the value of technical innovation to stakeholders

5. Use human-centred design tools and other innovative research methods to foster creativity and idea generation

6. Apply theories or findings to real world situations

7. Analyze case studies that focus on issues of the strategic value of technological innovation

About the Professor:

This course is designed, developed, and delivered by Professor Jim McLellan. Dr. McLellan has served as Head of the Chemical Engineering department for the periods July 2006 - June 2011 and July 2012 - June 2017. He is also cross-appointed to the Department of Mathematics and Statistics, and to the Dan School of Drama and Music. Jim McLellan is the Academic Director and a co-founder of the Dunin-Deshpande Queen’s Innovation Centre, and he helped establish the successful Queen’s Innovation Centre Summer Innovation initiative. Prior to joining Queen’s in 1990, he worked for Petro-Canada as a control applications engineer. He is an active researcher and consultant in the fields of statistical model building and process control, helping international and North American biomedical, aluminum smelting and rolling, polymer manufacturing and petrochemical companies improve their business processes. Jim is committed to building innovation and entrepreneurship programming at Queen’s and to growing a vibrant entrepreneurial culture in the Kingston region. Professor McLellan also teaches in the Smith School of Business Masters of Management of Innovation and Entrepreneurship, and the recently launched Bader International Study Centre International Innovation Term (i2TRM) program. Jim is also a semi-professional musician, and plays flute and piccolo with the Kingston Symphony Orchestra, and jazz flute with the 20th Century Jazz Band and the Blue Swing Jazz Quartet.